Cleveland's past and present merge in repurposed, grand old buildings

For years, passers-by saw only a vacant building, yet another reminder of a city's decline.

Steve Schimoler saw an elegant ghost from a glorious past.

Inch by inch, hour by hour, he summoned it back to life.

By the time he had removed the last bit of grime from the 12-by-20-foot mural on the wall, the main room came alive. It was immaculate, overpowering.

So much so that Schimoler started imagining dapper men sitting around a table in 1925, smoking cigars, drinking cognac and laying out big plans.

He imaginedFrank Ray Walker and Harry E. Weeks, the famous architect team, making their name by building some of Cleveland's greatest buildings: Severance Hall, Cleveland's Main Library downtown,the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Yet here was this Beaux-Arts architectural gem, on the corner of Lorain Avenue and West 25th Street, that time forgot.

The circa-1925 United Bank and Trust Building perished soon after the stock market crash of '29. It reopened here and there as this and that -- until eight years ago when it closed and just sat, vacant.

Well, happy days are here again. The old bank has been repurposed as Crop Bistro and Bar.

Opened six months ago, the restaurant has been packing in diners who are coming as much for this breathtaking space as Schimoler's cuisine.

"Every day I come to work and I'm inspired to put as much care into my food as they put in this building," says Schimoler, chef and owner of Crop. "This place cost $1.5 million to build in 1925, and these days it would cost $30 million. Who could ever build something like this these days, especially to house a restaurant?"

And that is the driving force behind the trend of repurposing beautiful buildings from the past that for years just sat waiting for the wrecking ball.

"The upside of the economic downturn in places like Cleveland is that no one had money to do something with so many spectacular places," Schimoler says. "So they've been untouched and are ready to be redeveloped."

Lifetime of memories in historic structures

It isn't just about beauty, though. It's about memories.

That was one of appeals of the Higbee Building to the Horseshoe Casino. The casino is set to open in the beloved old department store, which has been a fixture on Public Square since 1931.

"Clevelanders have a sentimental attachment to it," says Horseshoe spokeswoman Jennifer Kulczycki. "You wouldn't believe how many times people tell us they visited with their parents or grandparents when they were little."

The sentimental attachment -- personal and communal -- recalls a time when Cleveland's downtown included a vibrant shopping district, housing six department stores.

Higbee's -- which waspurchased by Dillard's and remained open until 2002 -- is at the center of that sentimentality, thanks in large partto its starring role in "A Christmas Story."

"The popularity of the movie has kept the building alive," Kulczycki says. "People equate it with holiday displays and family trips, and there's a lot of excitement in seeing it once again."

The art of reclaiming the past requires a new purpose to reflect a new economy without losing a sense of a building's original spirit.

"We're preserving the original brass work and the columns and restoring the wood at the bases of the columns," Kulczycki says. "It's important to recapture the sentimental value, so people feel like the place they remembered is alive again."

Gems all around us welcome people back

Some saw Nick Kostis as a sentimental fool when he opened Pickwick & Frolic 10 years ago. The 27,000-foot entertainment complex that houses two bars, a restaurant, cabaret stage and comedy club cost $4.5 million to build.

Not in the suburbs, but rather on what was then an empty, desolate street known as East Fourth.

The kicker was Kostis' dream: to re-create a Cleveland that existed way back when -- when downtown was thriving economically and socially.

The location was the old Euclid Avenue Opera House. Chandeliers, mirrors and much of the decor were repurposed from old department stores and shuttered venues.

"It's about welcoming people back to the city," said Kostis at the time. "We're not just who we believe ourselves to be in this moment in time. We are the sum of all that comes before."

His idea might have seemed far-fetched in 2002, but a decade later, it underscores the trend in reclaiming the past.

We see it on East Fourth, spilling out onto Euclid Avenue, up to Public Square.

We see it in Tremont, in places like Dante, the restaurant-bar located in the former Third Federal Savings & Loan.

We see it on West 25th Street, in the old poultry building that once housed live chickens but now goes by the nameMarket Garden Brewery.

"There used to be a time when tearing down and building something new was the mentality -- but not anymore," says Alenka Banco, owner of Josaphat Arts Hall. "We've come so far as a community, because we're thinking as members of a community with a shared past."

The past became Banco's future by accident one day.

She was driving down East 33rd Street on Cleveland's near East Side when she saw movers taking furniture out of St. Josaphat Roman Catholic Church. The circa-1915 church had been closed and put up for sale by the ClevelandCatholic Diocese.

"I stopped and asked them if they had anything for sale," she says. "They told me, 'No, just the building -- you want to buy it?' "

She did, in 2001, and re-opened it as an art space in 2005.

These days, Banco hosts art shows and parties in the former church, even rents it for weddings.

"So many people have an emotional attachment to this building and have told methey were so happy to see it preserved, even if the purpose is different," she says. "The stories of our neighborhoods are not just told by people, but by our buildings."

Schimoler points to the mural at Crop to tell of a different era and a new purpose.

"See, look at those storm clouds at the top," he says, pointing to the mural of a Renaissance market with a 20th-century flair. "Sometimes I imagine these guys sitting there smoking their cigars and drinking and talking."

About the weather?

"No, foreseeing the Great Depression coming," he says. "And as they're smoking and drinking, they're also thinking, 'Hey, this could be a great restaurant someday.' "

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